Young Real-Estate Star Makes
Money, Foes in Partnerships

Andrew Farkas is living proof that, even in the 1990s, a relative nobody can become a real-estate tycoon in just a few years.

In 1988, at the age of 27, Mr. Farkas was near personal bankruptcy, a small-time casualty of the commercial real-estate bust that wiped out so many big-name developers. Today, Insignia Financial Group Inc., which Mr. Farkas founded in 1990, is the largest owner and manager of apartments in the nation, and Mr....